Tag: 2025

Today was a driving day to get to our next campsite near the St. Mary Entrance of Glacier National Park. It was only a few hours drive, so we were able to stop at a few places along the way. It was very hot to start the day, sunny and near 90 degrees.

We made it to Kalispell and did some shopping. We normally do not “shop” much on our road trips, preferring to spend most of our time in nature or museums. We stopped at 2 quilt shops, one of them being overwhelmingly huge. I got a few things at each shop. Then we stopped at a really full used bookstore where Jeff found a book about the Civil War that he wanted. Then we found a Barnes & Noble. Spencer is rediscovering his voracious love for reading on this trip and wanted the rest of the books in a Branden Sanderson series he started.

After we stopped for lunch in Whitefish, we visited the train station where Jeff took a few pictures and then headed back into the big mountains.

On the way across the Marias Pass to the east side of Glacier National Park, we made one more stop at the Izaak Walton Inn where you can stay in Cabooses and have beaufutl views of the mountains and trains! Ha! It was built by the railroad to bring summer tourists from the east and to house railroad workers in the winter. It is a stop on the Empire Builder Amtrak train so it would be a fun trip someday. It is close to hiking trails and of course Glacier National Park .

It was still about 80 degrees at the lodge, but by the time we got to our campsite about an hour later, it was 50 degrees and sprinkling out. During the drive, it got pretty foggy so we could not see any mountains in the distance and it felt like we were driving in the clouds.

With teamwork, we all set up the camper in record time, as our warmer clothes were inside the camper. It is so nice to have older kids to help and we were all settled in less than 10 minutes. We made it just before it started down pouring.

After the rain cell went through and it was back to sprinkling, we went to Johnson’s cafe which is at the entrance to the campground. We all had the special, buffalo meatloaf and they served the meal family style. Everything was cooked from scratch: the meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, bread, beef vegetable soup, and a vinegar-based coleslaw. We had warm huckleberry pie a la mode for dessert. It was all so delicious! We definitely recommend this place for anyone that visits the area.

Road trips don’t always go as planned. Sometimes the driving days work perfectly and we make good time, drive on roads and through towns that don’t have a lot of traffic, and never get off track. This driving day was not one of those days. The GPS tracked us differently than was planned and added a ton of time to our drive to the next campground. By the time we realized it, it was too late. So we ended up driving past Glacier National Park entrances instead of the less touristy route that Jeff planned. Then we tried to stop at a quilt shop and got there 10 minutes after they closed. Sigh. We did drive through Marias Pass, which was stunning though so all was not lost.

We stopped to stretch our legs at a historical marker and took a photo of the view. Egg Mountain is the spot where scientists have found the largest amount of dinosaur eggs and baby dinosaur fossils. We’re were walking along the fence taking photos and an old guy in a pickup drives by and tells out “Watch out for snakes!” Yikes! We quickly got back to the safety of the truck (we were only a couple feet away from the parking area) and went on our way.

When we finally got to Rexford Bench Campground, we were very happy to finally relax. The campsite is in the middle of tall Douglas Fir and Ponderosa Pines so it was mesmerizing to sit under them and watch them wave in the breeze. There were barely any mosquitoes, the campsite was huge, and the bathrooms had flush toilets. We were at 48.8 degrees North, so the sun didn’t set until 10 pm and even then didn’t get super dark for a long time.

We didn’t have anything planned for our full day at this spot, which was nice. We all read books for hours. Carson and I walked to the nearby “saloon” because he had a craving for hot chocolate (it was 90 degrees out). The locals definitely gave us some funny looks, but they made him some hot chocolate and he enjoyed it immensely.

Near sunset, Spencer, Jeff and I walked on the trail near the campground to the lake overlook. Jeff had gone by himself earlier in the day and said it was breathtaking. He was definitely right about that! Wow! I loved the color of the water. I had to take photos of the local flowers of course, plus we saw deer on our walk.

We woke up and Jeff made a tasty breakfast of spam and eggs. Then we headed out for the day’s activity, a 2 hour boat tour up the Missouri in an area called “Gates of the Mountain”.

We were on an open air boat that held about 50 people. The amazing tour guide told us so many stories related to the history of their boat company (which pre-dates Montana as a state), and then the geography and history along the way.

The rock in this part of the Rockies rose up almost vertically and folded in on itself. you can see the layers in the photos. Some layers of the rock is older than most life on the planet and other layers have tons of fossils in them from ancient sea beds and dinosaurs.

She also told us about Mann Gulch. In 1949, there was a wildfire in the gulch and smokejumpers were fighting it while waiting for the airplanes to bring support. Their radio broke on the rough landing, and they were deep in the gulch and had to fight the fire to the river. The wind turned and trapped them. They all started to run, but the leader of the group set a small back fire and then laid down under his firefighting jacket. The fire burned right over him, but he didn’t get burned at all, though anyone who didn’t follow his lead perished. This incident changed how smoke-jumping and firefighting was done-requiring more redundancies, an escape plan, and more methods of communication.

We also saw an eagle’s nest, a rock troll, a petroglyph/pictograph and stopped at a picnic spot where Clark stayed overnight when they paddled through. We saw the infamous “gates” of the mountain that was mentioned in Lewis and Clark’s journals and it reminded us of scenes in Lord of the Rings where they paddle past huge guardian statues on each side of the river.

Afterwards we stopped at the gift shop where I saw some gorgeous lupine flowers blooming in a pot and may have grabbed a couple seed pods for a future flower pot. Then we went back to the campsite and relaxed, took naps, and read books for a few hours. Later Spencer, Jeff and I went to the Hauser Dam nearby which failed a year after it was initially built (one of the stories the guide told us on the boat). It had gotten rebuilt soon after and is what created the reservoir that our campground is near. You can still see the wreckage of the old dam and the powerhouse is still in use. There were people fishing under the dam and lots of birds, probably swallows, were flying around.